


Magnitude and Direction

by Aris Merquoni (ArisTGD)



Series: Directionless [4]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alternate Universe, BDSM, Character of Color, Directedverse, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-28
Updated: 2007-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-06 20:48:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArisTGD/pseuds/Aris%20Merquoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't matter what universe you're in--even if you really want a relationship to work, it's always possible to screw it up, or stay a million miles away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magnitude and Direction

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my betas, and to [](http://helenish.livejournal.com/profile)[**helenish**](http://helenish.livejournal.com/) for the inspiring universe.

Lahoya worked as a secretary for a firm on the twelfth floor of an office building in downtown Princeton. She got off work at five; Eric Foreman was waiting for her at five after when she stepped out the front doors. She wasn't looking for him in the crowd; he had to clear his throat pretty loudly beside her to get her to look up.

She stared when she recognized him. "I thought I said--"

He held up the rose he'd been hiding behind his back. "I said a lot of stupid things during that argument," he said. "I'm sorry. I was hoping we could talk."

She looked down at the rose, looked uncomfortable. "It wasn't just the argument, Eric," she said. "There are a lot of things I've been thinking for a while, and it just came to a head, that's all."

"Well, I want to listen," he said. He stepped forward until he could brush her hair back from her shoulder, then slid his hand down her arm to gently catch her wrist with his fingers. "Please? Dinner, drinks..."

"I..." She was looking down at his hand, but not moving away.

"Or just talking," he said, not moving his hand. "Please? I thought we had a good thing going, and I'd like to work on it."

She got a funny sort of smile on her face, then looked up and sighed. "Hell. Okay. Dinner." And she nudged her hand further into his until his fingers closed around her wrist. He squeezed gently, and walked on air all the way to the car.

* * *

House woke Wilson up in the middle of the night by slamming his cane into the armrest of the couch right next to his head. When he blinked his eyes open frantically, House glared at him and said, "I'm not sleeping with you."

He turned his head far enough to see the clock. With House's cane in the way, it was either 5, 3, or J in the morning. "Given that it's the middle of the night, I appreciate it," he said, rather coherently, he thought.

House stared down at him silently for a minute, then said, "What if I ordered you to give me a blowjob?"

That would have been an appealing suggestion if his mouth didn't taste like he'd been asleep for far too short a time. Still was an appealing suggestion, his body told him with a sudden rush. But there were limits, and mind games with House at J in the morning were a bad idea. "Can't this wait until dawn?"

"Right," House said, put his cane to its intended use, and headed back to his room. Wilson checked the clock--3, closer to 3:15--and threw his arm over his eyes.

The next day he flipped through the apartment listings at breakfast. House peeked over his shoulder and snorted. "Afraid I'm going to make an assault on your virtue?"

"If you did that, at least I'd be sleeping in a bed," he retorted.

He'd worked hard at eliminating the sub tells from his phone voice for work, but he didn't bother for phoning the places he wanted to look at. He'd get dirtier looks when he checked out the places in person if he sounded like a dom on the phone. He lined up three places to look at whose landlords didn't sound completely scandalized and laughed to himself when he hung up on a fourth.

"She asked if I had a _chaperone_," he said to House's curious look. "I'm forty, soon to be divorced for the third time, and head of my department, and still they want to treat me like I'm twelve."

"You broke the glass ceiling, but now they're staring at your ass," House said.

He snorted. "Yeah. But that was just surreal."

Work was... better than the previous day. He had appointments with three long-term patients who must have noticed his current status, but nobody made any comments.

Chase caught his eye from a couple tables away at lunch. Tilted his head, raised an eyebrow slightly. _How's it going?_

Response: slight grimace, shrug, rueful smirk. _You know House._

Eyeroll, grin. _Do I ever._ Short followup: serious nod, smile. _Good luck._

Smile back. _Thanks._

At least, he hoped that was the conversation he was having. If his American-to-Australian facial gesture lexicon was off, he might have just asked Chase out again.

He decided to make dinner at House's apartment when he got home. After checking the fridge, he decided to get enough supplies so he wouldn't die of scurvy and _then_ cook something. When he was finishing the stir-fry House showed up in the doorway and stared at him.

"You're making _dinner?_" House asked after a couple seconds.

"I was hungry," he said. "Want some?"

"And now you're offering me food," House mused. "Sorry, the way to this top's heart is not via his stomach."

"Fine," he retorted, annoyed, "more leftovers for me, then."

He piled beef and broccoli and sauce on top of rice and pushed past House to the sofa. House turned and watched him, then limped over and stared down at him. "I'm still not sleeping with you," he said, in what had become a familiar tone.

"That's all right," Wilson said. Then, innocent as he could, he added, "You're just going to have to give me extra time in the shower to jerk off properly."

One of the tricks of acting innocent, he'd learned in college, was not looking at the person you were teasing, no matter how tempting it was to check on how flustered they were getting. He concentrated on the TiVo'ed horror movie and ignored the abrupt silence from House.

Finally, House said, "You're blackmailing me with my water bill? That's creative."

Wilson very deliberately sucked the sauce off a piece of broccoli before replying, "Think of it as compensation for mental distress."

House stole a plate of stir-fry and kicked Wilson's feet off the coffee table. Wilson considered housing options and smiled.

* * *

Foreman was grateful when their next case turned out to be a challenging piece of diagnostic work, requiring butting heads with House more than once. It made it easier to concentrate on work and work alone when work was kicking your ass. It also gave him something to point to when Cameron started having another crisis of identity or Chase whined for the third time in an hour how his latest top was at a conference in Italy for a week.

But soon enough, they'd solved the case--House was right, _again_, heavy metal toxicity and not Lupus--and he and Cameron and Chase were left at the end of the day and he really didn't want to go home to his empty apartment. So as he doublechecked his keys he turned to his colleagues and asked, "Drinks?"

Cameron nodded, familiar with the routine. "Sure."

After a second, Foreman cleared his throat and glanced at Chase. "You interested?"

That got him the first _real_ doubletake he'd seen since coming to work at this hospital--and the first time he'd seen Chase truly surprised. "Um, okay,"

"If you don't have other plans," Foreman drawled.

Chase glanced down at his manacles reflexively, then smirked. "Right."

Cameron seemed happy enough to have Chase along. She monopolized him to the point that the waiter at their usual bar gave them the 'oh, cute couple' look. Chase caught it, then sat up and slipped seamlessly into dom body language with a challenging glare.

The waiter blinked back surprise, then gave Chase's cuffs a dirty look before going to get their drinks. Cameron chatted away, unheeding. Chase's eyes got a faraway look and he winced, slightly, before he caught Foreman watching him and turned it into another confident smile.

"I just can't believe she'd want to kill him," Cameron finally said, winding down.

Chase shrugged. "People are nuts."

"You think House is right," she said, midway between resigned and amused. "You think she just didn't want to be married any more."

He shrugged again. "Makes as much sense as anything," he said. "People get attached to their facades, how people see them. How they're supposed to behave." He was looking straight at her, now. "How they were raised."

Foreman thanked God, silently, that their waiter came back with their drinks and gave Chase another dirty look to distract him with. Chase's answering grin was incandescent.

Cameon opened her mouth for an angry retort, saw Chase's byplay with the waiter, closed it. Then she said, "What happened... with you?"

"Hmm?" Chase asked around a mouthful of rum-and-coke.

"I mean..." she shrugged. "I get the feeling you didn't want to be out at work."

His shrug was stiffer, this time. "Why not? Unlike some people, I'm comfortable in my own skin."

"You're lucky you didn't get fired," Foreman said.

Chase looked at him, levelly, as though he were sizing him up--he _was_ sizing him up, Foreman realized with a start, but apparently he passed some sort of test because Chase sighed and said, "Someone did. A nurse... Samantha. She was a switch. She and I fooled around a bit, but it didn't work out... and then she screwed up, and insulted a patient. She outed me during her exit interview." This time the smile was all bitterness.

"Shit," Foreman said.

"That's horrible," Cameron said.

He shrugged. "House didn't care. That made it more or less bearable."

"Ruining someone's life like that..." Cameron said.

Chase looked at her condescendingly. "My life isn't _over_, Cameron. I got over it."

"And you can bring any of your dates to hospital parties, now," Foreman pointed out.

"Yeah, see?" Chase said. "That totally makes up for all the shit I get from everybody."

Foreman wondered, briefly, if all switches had chips on their shoulders as big as Chase's.

Cameron forgot her vow to never listen to anything Chase had to say about sex, which took up about two rounds' worth of drinking. Foreman stayed quiet and listened to them talk human nature until Cameron hit her limit and left.

Before Chase could duck away, he said, "Can I ask you a question?"

Second time in a night he'd surprised Chase, though this time he had Chase's intoxication on his side. "Sure?"

"Have you ever had non-dynamic sex?"

"Ha!" Chase snapped. "Yes, because I'm a switch, obviously I've done EVERY kinky thing that two people can do together. Or three people. Or, shit, however many people--or animals--or whatever you can fit in a bed." He pointed angrily in Foreman's direction. "In fact, I actually got a master's degree in 'Kinky Shit People Get Up To.' 'Cause that's a special degree for switches, in Australia. Want to see my thesis? It's a robot fursuit with a slit on the back and a belt sander on its stomach. And a videocamera."

Foreman waited to make sure he'd wound down, then said, "Finished?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"You practice that just for the next time I asked you something like this?"

Chase picked up his drink and mumbled, "No" into it.

He sighed. Chase finished his cocktail, set it down, and pushed his hair back in an almost stereotypically switchy gesture. Foreman rolled his beer glass around in his hand for a moment, then asked, "So, have you ever had--"

"No I have never had non-dynamic sex!" Chase glared at him. "Why d'you want to know, anyway?"

He took a deep breath, then said, "My submissive wants to try it."

Chase sat back sharply, all the visible antagonism startled out of him. "Shit," he said.

"Yeah. I don't know." He smiled wryly. "Thought I might ask, anyway."

"Wow. You gonna go for it?"

He took a deep breath. "I'm... thinking about it," he said reluctantly. "I mean, I really like this girl. She's gorgeous, great in bed..."

"Hunh." Chase looked down at his empty glass, then shrugged. "Well, what's the worst that can happen?"

"One of us gets hurt because nobody knows who's in control?" he said, rhetorically.

"More likely it just sucks and you break up," Chase said. "Or it's fantastic, and House finds out and ridicules you for the next three weeks."

"Yeah, that's definitely more likely," he said.

"Go for it." Chase grinned. "Who would've thought, huh?"

"If you tell Cameron," he said, "I'll tell House you swiped his Vicodin."

"No worries from me," Chase said, chuckling. "Just lemme know if it's worth it."

* * *

The next day was when the reality of Wilson's divorce started to hit him. He was sitting in his office, paging through a file, and thought, _I should remember to tell Julie--_

Which was, of course, when the half of his brain that was paying attention punched him in the stomach and screamed, _There IS no Julie, she rescinded your collar and THREW YOU OUT, or don't you have brains enough to remember?_

He didn't bother trying to cook when he got back to House's apartment. He called up a pizza place and rattled off a string of numbers and eventually someone came and gave him something that resembled food. Maybe the seventeen-year-old top who delivered it was sizing him up, or maybe he was wondering what Wilson was doing in House's apartment--maybe _Wilson_ was wondering what Wilson was doing in House's apartment. Maybe he should push harder on the housing search. First appointment tomorrow. He sat on the couch and ate flavorless pizza and watched something that might have been static on the TV.

"No more home cooking?" House asked from above his head and slightly to the left. "You'll never finish that seduction at this rate."

Wilson looked up. House had a beer in his hand, was leaning idly on his cane and sipping it. He hadn't even heard him come in.

And maybe it was good that he was just staring and not talking, because what he wanted--what he really wanted, no coercion, no ifs or anything--was for House to break that bottle of beer open and use the broken glass to cut his clothes off, not too careful about it, and tie his hands back hard--halfway to the elbows--with whatever cloth was left and fuck his mouth until he was choking, and it was good he couldn't say that, because the thing about House was that even though James trusted him with his life, with anything, he didn't seem to understand sometimes that sometimes you really needed to let go, just freefall, just prove to yourself that you could trust someone that much again, especially when someone else had hurt you, and that it wasn't weakness. It _wasn't_.

He turned back to the TV and didn't say anything.

House sighed when he sat down next to him. "I'm not going to be your rebound," he said quietly.

"I know," James said, throat raw.

"Get some sleep," House said. "It'll look better in the morning."

* * *

"So you've done this before?"

Lahoya smiled at him, flashing teeth. "Yeah, my last top and I did it a few times. I liked it a lot."

Eric tried grinning, tried to think of something encouraging to say as he folded his shirt and set it on the back of his chair. "Well, I hope I can do your expectations justice," was what he came up with.

Her smile turned warmer, sweeter, and she ducked her head for a moment. "Thanks, Eric," she said. "I mean, really, thanks for agreeing to try this. I know--"

"Hey," he said, taking her by the shoulders. Her skin was warm under his fingers, and he steadied his hands against her. "I meant it when I said I like being with you. If that means trying this out, it's the least I can do."

She reached up and laced her fingers with his, tilted her head up to kiss him. "Okay," she said. "C'mon."

She pulled him down to the bed. He leaned over her, then, conscious of what he was trying very hard _not_ to do, he rolled over so she was on top of him, all curves and warm weight and smooth, smooth skin. She kissed him again and he choked back impulses, commands, reflexes to grab her hips and hold her somewhere. Her hands kept moving, drawing patterns on his chest, exploring like he was a--like he was a sub or something.

(Chase had emailed him one of Dan Savage's columns that morning, advice for tops who wanted to try out non-dynamic. He'd read it three times, but the words seemed remote and sterile next to the reality right here on top of him.)

"Here," she said, skimming her hands across his stomach, down to his cock. "Does this feel good?"

And yes, it did, and "Yeah," he panted, but she hadn't even _asked_, and God that was weird in ways he didn't even know how to say.

As her hands caused the buzz in his senses to spiral louder and louder he tentatively let himself touch her, learning from her moans and gasps when he found someplace sensitive, gasping when she bent down and captured his right forefinger with her lips, her teeth. Her tongue pressed suede-slick against the pad of his fingertip, slid sensuously along the joint. He pulled his hand back and leaned down to kiss her, grasping her just behind the neck, drawing her close--no. He let her choose when to back off, was surprised when she pushed him down with both hands and then followed, his dick nestled in the cleft of her thighs.

"Mmm," she said, "I like touching you."

He took a breath, trying to think what to say. "Good," was the best he could do on short notice.

She ran her palm up his chest, slowly; proof of concept. "Anything you'd like, honey?"

He curved his hands around her waist, gently, gently. "I'm good," he said, believing it, _making_ himself believe it. "You just show me, baby, and I'll follow your lead."

She showed him, with caresses, with guiding fingers, with soft moans. And when she finally slid down over him and he thrust upward into that sweet inviting enveloping heat, he gasped for breath alongside her and thought, damn, those kinky bastards might have something going on.

* * *

Wilson and House's next argument happened in slow motion.

"Cuddy called," he said to House the next morning, after guiltily picking up the phone and enduring her shocked stutter and eventual explanation. "Possibly an interesting case. A girl came in after anaphylactic shock."

House squinted at him. "You'll have to do better than that if you want me to sleep with you."

He sighed. "Cuddy actually _did_ call, and she actually _did_ want you to take this case."

"So why do you want me to take this case?"

"Who says I want anything?"

"Well," House shrugged, "you are acting as my phone bitch right now. If you didn't want me to take the case you wouldn't have screened it in."

Wilson closed his eyes and counted upwards until the red haze was gone from his vision. It took to twenty-three. "Okay, new rule. You don't get to call me a bitch unless we're _actually_ sleeping together."

When he looked again, House was eyeing him with grudging respect. "Fair enough."

"Fine." He took another breath. "I took the message because unlike you, I don't particularly like seeing how much I can get away with before Cuddy brings down the hammer of God."

House smirked. "Or the riding crop of God, which might be a little more fun." And they were right back there. "What makes _you_ interested?"

"I'm not trying to use this to sleep with you!" That being the implication--that being the implication of _any_ of their conversations the past couple days. He shook his head. "She went into shock in a clean room."

House's eyes got that particular 'I've got a mystery' glaze, and Wilson knew talking about their relationship wasn't going to happen for a while.

Knowing glance from Cuddy at the hospital. Patient, patient, staff meeting, consult. Taking off at lunch to check out another apartment. When he got back, he learned that House had started re-testing everything in the girl's house on the theory that someone was lying.

"That's a convenient theory," he said when House explained this to him after barging into his office.

"It's convenient because it's usually right," House said. "The results assuming the theory is correct have been much better than results assuming the opposite."

"So," Wilson said, "going by your theory, was your claim that you're not attracted to me also a lie?"

He would have missed House's hesitation if he hadn't known him for close to ten years. "That's assuming that your drama is the only thing I've been thinking about--or lying about."

"So I'm flattering myself," he said.

"And unable to see the big picture through said drama."

He rolled his eyes. "Right. And you've got so much perspective on my problems, with your lofty objectivity."

"Can you honestly say that your crush on me isn't inspired by Julie dropping you like a hot potato? With some kind of potato-based syphilis?"

"It's not," he argued, flushing. "How do I prove that to you? Subbing obviously doesn't work, trying to top doesn't work--"

"Right," House said. "You tried to prove the purity of your feelings for me by sleeping with Chase. Can't see the flaw in _that_ plan."

"I--" Come to think of it, it hadn't exactly been the pinnacle of his genius. "Look, what am I supposed to say, here? As far as I can see, this doesn't have anything to do with my problems, it's your--"

House pushed himself to his feet and stepped forward, until he was leaning over Wilson's desk, cutting off his protest with sheer force of presence. "What if," he said, "I _ordered_ you to tell me the truth?"

And he seriously couldn't swallow, his mouth was so dry, and it got that way every time House used that _voice_ when he dropped down an octave and frankly sure he'd had fantasies with whips and chains and all the normal toys but lately they'd been replaced and it was just House telling him to _do_ things in just that voice and he hoped he wouldn't have to stand up for a while.

"I--" he said, throat raspy, "I'd say the same thing."

House's face was unreadable. He exhaled, and shifted his weight, and suddenly he seemed tired--of the argument, anyway. He held Wilson's gaze for another moment and said, "Everybody lies to themselves."

Wilson watched as he left, his brain scrambling for a response but unable to form one, as though House had just demolished even his rudimentary language skills with that one stroke. He managed an incoherent moan as he tried to pick up his emotional entrails from where they'd landed on his mental floor. Bad sub, useless sub, no spanking for you.

Fuck.

Deep breaths. Recover ability to speak before next patient. Meeting. Consult. Paperwork.

Chase rapped on his door near the end of the day, held himself like he was wound to the breaking point when he stepped inside. "The patient's mother," he said, all syllables precisely measured, "asked that I be taken off the case."

Wilson sat back, startled. "Because you're a switch?"

Chase nodded.

He winced. His heart was hammering in his throat, anatomically unlikely as that might be, convinced that this situation was also somehow _his fault_. "How did she--"

"The girl's sub--" Chase suddenly smirked, "who is wearing a hypoallergenic collar, isn't that sweet--might have carried in our mystery allergen. I... slipped up when I was talking to him. I thought it didn't matter, but when I got back she was _staring_ at me..."

"My patient and everyone she knows is an _idiot_," House announced, striding in, before doing a theatrical doubletake at Chase. "Oh, hey, you must be upset at the same thing I am."

Chase stared, startled into silence.

House waved at the door. "Cuddy's arguing with the mom," he said. "I don't think anything'll get through that thick skull of hers, but in case it does you'll want to be waiting in the office for the outcome."

Chase nodded, hesitantly, shot a final glance at Wilson before ducking for the door. House pushed it shut behind him with his cane and snagged the chair.

_If I don't do anything but lie, what are you doing here?_ seemed an impolitic opening. Wilson swallowed until he was sure he could talk and tried, "Patient displaying more than the usual idiocy?"

"Patient is pretty standard for a teenage dom," House said. "Patient's mother is an overwhelming control freak wired up with all the standard primitive bigotry."

"So she wants Chase out."

"Yep."

"Did she give any reason? Other than..."

House scowled. "Apparently, my concerns about making sure her daughter _lives_ are oughtweighted by her concerns about her own hypocritical morality."

"Well," Wilson said carefully, "I'm sure if you need an intensivist, Cuddy can assign someone from the ICU. Free up Cameron and Foreman to work on diagnostics."

"That's not the point." House pushed himself to his feet and started pacing. "I don't _need_ an intensivist. I need _Chase_. Chase generates ideas. I've beaten the habit into him, and I don't have time to beat it into someone else." He paused. "More to the point, my patient doesn't have time. But if she dies I get Chase back so I don't have to care."

"Chase's ideas are that important?"

House scoffed. "I'm not saying they're _good_. But he's thirty percent of my external idea-generation capacity. Even with the other sixty running at full tilt, I might miss some stupid remark that proves the key to solving this thing. I _need_ all of that."

Wilson rubbed at his eyes. "No wonder you need Chase's ideas; your math is off. Thirty and sixty only makes ninety percent. Who's the other ten?"

"You are."

He looked up. House was staring at him evenly.

Oh. _Oh_.

"I--" he said, then had to take a breath. "Sorry I haven't been... helpful."

House scowled and waved off his apology. Because of course House couldn't say anything as simple as _I need this from you_ or _I need what we have right now, and risking that for anything would kill me._ House wasn't _like_ that.

He buried his face in his hands to avoid looking up. "This has been one hell of a day."

"I figured out where the anaphylaxis came from," House said. "But she's gone into congestive heart failure."

"Shit."

"We're working on that, now." When Wilson looked up, he'd raised his eyebrows hopefully. "Unless you can think of something that causes both heart failure _and_ anaphylactic shock."

"Not..." he said, "not off the top of my head, sorry."

"Penis-wielded penicillin it is, then," House mused, and Wilson decided Not To Ask. "At least it fits the profile of teenagers being morons and then lying about it."

"Ah, yes," Wilson muttered. "Everybody lies."

House sighed and tapped his cane on the floor. "Good track record so far."

* * *

Eric and Lahoya's next argument happened after the fourth time.

That first time they tried out the non-dynamic sex, it had taken him a while to get used to it, but he had to admit when it was all over that it had been fun. Novel. The second time, he was more relaxed, more willing to let go and enjoy himself, and the intensity and newness and _wonder_ of the experience bowled him over.

The third time, the sheen was starting to wear off.

And the fourth time, frankly, sucked. He'd only stayed hard through a combination of sheer willpower and closing his eyes to dredge up his most potent fantasies--normal fantasies, normal sex, Lahoya begging, promising to do _anything_ he asked--

"You okay, babe?" she asked afterward, glistening with drying sweat half a foot from him on his bed.

"Yeah..." he said, and when she looked over at the tone of his voice, he admitted, "I'd just like to go back to normal sex for a while, okay?"

He didn't realize that he'd just started an argument. Or that they'd be shouting at each other within five minutes.

"You just don't understand what I'm going through," she snarled after twenty minutes of back and forth, around and around the same words over again. "You aren't _listening_ to me."

"I'm listening," he repeated, "I'm listening, but I've never said I think you're a pervert or anything--I enjoyed it too! I was just _thinking_ that maybe _sometimes_ we could back away from the kinky stuff--"

"Because it's just kinky stuff to you," she snapped, "And I'm just a freakier-than-normal sub you can brag about to your co-workers--"

"I don't _brag_\--"

"And you don't get that this isn't about the _sex_ for me, that I'm trying to reach a deeper _emotional_ connection--"

"Oh, great, maybe you can start looking for that connection by listening to one goddamn word I'm saying--"

"And you just want to give up on that--"

"I just want," he said, cutting across her, "for you to _submit_, sometimes, like a _normal fucking submissive_, instead of trying to top me all the fucking time or _whatever_ you think you're doing--"

Her back stiffened and her cheeks went ashen, and he realized about two sentences too late that he'd just completely fucked up.

"Lahoya," he said, as she bent down and grabbed her shirt, wrestling it over her head. "Babe, wait, I'm sorry--"

"No," she said, jaw tense. She pulled on her panties and inched her skirt over her legs. "No, fine, you go find yourself a _proper_ sub, and don't stop fucking them until they can't say anything but 'yes, sir.' I got the message."

She brushed past him toward the front door, and she'd fumbled her shoes on by the time he could grab a robe and follow her. "Lahoya--"

"Or just go fuck yourself," she suggested hotly, then stormed out of his life a second time.

* * *

House after a successful diagnosis and treatment was House usually unwilling to speak to anyone but Wilson; his preferred strategy was to hide while his team worked cleanup and filed the paperwork. Wilson found him watching General Hospital in the coma patient's room, hiding his face behind a bag of potato chips.

"The way you watch that thing," Wilson commented as he took a seat, "you're more of a house-sub than I am."

House snorted and consumed a handful of chips with a pleased crunching sound. "Thanks for the save. With Cuddy."

"You're welcome," he said, and tried to snag some of the precious salts-and-calories. House tilted the bag obligingly. "Team running at full capacity again?"

"Chase still isn't allowed within twenty feet of the kid's bedside," House said. "But he's channeling his anger productively."

"I noticed you haven't been sexually harassing me the last couple of days."

House leaned back to look at him. "You miss the harassment? You _are_ a sub."

"Granted," he said, slightly annoyed, "but I was just wondering why you stopped. This is you, after all; why should my feelings about the subject come into play?"

House scowled and turned to stare at the TV again, tossing the chips on the coma patient's legs.

Wilson picked up the bag and tried unsuccessfully to brush crumbs off the bedspread. House was ignoring him in favor of squinting at a character's perfect breasts and tapping his cane rhythmically on the floor until Wilson couldn't follow the dialogue. Not that he could follow the dialogue anyway--something about amnesia? Or maybe a long-lost evil twin? Whatever.

"Okay," House said in his I'm-making-a-grand-concession voice, "how well can you lie?"

He turned and stared. "How well can I--you hate it when people lie to you."

"Who said you'd be lying to me?"

"Okay..." He turned that over in his mind. "What would I be lying about?"

"That we're not sleeping together."

Dizzy--he felt dizzy. And his vision was black. Because he'd closed his eyes in shock. When his brain restored motor function and he blinked his eyes open again, House was staring at him. "We... we're not sleeping together," he finally said.

House wasn't brushing it off. "No. But if we _were_, my condition would be that you lie about it."

"I..." Nothing about this conversation was making sense. "Does that mean that you--"

"And by lie about it," House continued, "I mean lie about it so convincingly that nobody at this hospital suspects that anything has changed."

He swallowed. Hard. "You mean, we'd have to be in the closet."

A small smirk. "Yep."

"Our perfectly legitimate relationship." There. He'd said it.

House raised an eyebrow. "Inside the boundary that I define."

"So I don't do any of those--" What was the phrase? "Those 'god-damn submissive _things_' you can't stand."

"You can't tell Cuddy," House said, standing. He leaned over James, smiling faintly. "You can't tell _Chase_."

"You're treating me like some dirty little secret," he said, and he was surprised at how raspy his voice sounded all of a sudden, and oh God, oh God did he hope he wasn't going to have to get up in the next _hour_, and it was a good thing he'd have the bullshit soap opera to concentrate on because otherwise he was going to have this erection until he got home and House would finally--

God. It didn't bear--no it actually bore a _lot_ of thinking about, but his prick wouldn't exactly bear thinking about it--

"We'll start tomorrow," House said, heading for the door.

Wilson inhaled, bit his lower lip, and put extreme mental effort into getting his mind back on the level. "You know," he said, and he was startled at how normal he sounded.

House paused with one hand on the door. Wilson turned and gave him a look, trying for considering but getting distracted by the lines of House's hands, the set of his shoulders. "You know, by Jewish tradition, 'tomorrow' starts at sundown."

House slowly smiled. "So you've got about an hour to get home before you break the terms of our agreement."

* * *

Lahoya worked as a secretary for a firm on the twelfth floor of an office building downtown. She got off work at five; Eric was waiting for her at five after when she stepped out the front doors.

She looked up and saw him; her stride hesitated for an instant before she pressed her lips into a firm line and moved to walk straight past.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I'm not talking to you." She gritted her teeth as he fell into step beside her.

"Lahoya, please--I screwed up. A lot. I'm sorry."

"What do you expect me to say? Good on you, you figured that out?"

"I don't--" He ducked left around a group of teenagers when she ducked right; he held his tongue until he was next to her again. "I don't want to just leave things like this. I wanted to apologize, to tell you--"

She ducked sideways into an office building courtyard and stopped short, arms crossed, chin raised. "Okay. Talk."

He hesitated, putting words in order as best he could, fighting against the urge to step into her space. "I wasn't listening," he said, "and I didn't realize that it wasn't just... something you enjoyed. And, y'know, that's okay. It's important to you, and I don't want to change that. And I want to be with you."

She was biting her lower lip, looking up at him through her eyelashes. He took another breath and said, "But the whole... thing, look, it's important to you, I understand that, but it's not for _me_. It's not my kink. And it's--I'm not saying I won't, I'm saying I need to _be_ a top, at least sometimes, or it's not going to work at all."

Lahoya waited for him to finish, patiently. When he finally ran out of words he jammed his hands in his pockets and waited.

"You've been good to me," she finally said. He looked up; she was fiddling with the strap on her purse and avoiding his eyes. "And I've been a brat."

He laughed, startled. "Yeah, a bit."

She smiled. "Yeah. And I won't feel right about being with you until you take care of me for that." She looked up, finally, and stepped into _his_ space. "But I do want to try."

He took her by the shoulders, grinning fit to burst. Yes. She'd said yes, and--"You want me to take you over my knee right here?"

She looked behind her at the molded concrete benches lining the courtyard, chewed on her lower lip. "I--yes I would, but I _really_ don't want to wreck these nylons..."

He kissed her forehead. "Okay. Plan ahead better next time."

"Okay," she agreed, smile flashing with sudden radiance. She pressed her lips against his, then knelt smoothly to kiss the instep of his foot.

Eric draped his arm around her shoulders when she stood, and barely felt the ground beneath him all the way to his car.


End file.
